November Gratitude Diaries Post 23: Aspic Salad

I'm thankful to my brother Curtis who continues the tradition of making aspic salad at our family holidays. If you're not familiar, this is basically Jello made with tomato juice, or "Clamato" juice ("for extra umami" so my brother says?!). Our traditional recipe suspends green peas in the opaque gelatinous dome, and is served with a nice helping of mayonnaise. Yep. Mayonnaise. This is one of those dishes that my dad would always make, no one else would touch, and we'd make gross-out noises while he delighted in it, generally by himself or with a brave (or terrified?) dinner guest. ​This year, my dad is gone. This year, I went ahead and had some, complete with the mayo dollop. It was sweet and savory, a bit like a jelly-gazpacho. As my brother so eloquently said, "try it. It's really not as bad as it looks." In fact, don't tell, but I thought it was, as my dad would say, "lovely."